Is Vladimir Putin hiding a $200 billion fortune? [Putin is worth] $200 billion. After 14 years in power of Russia, and the amount of money that the country has made, and the amount of money that hasn't been spent on schools and roads and hospitals and so on, all that money is in property, bank, Swiss bank accounts, shares, hedge funds, managed for Putin and his cronies.
Clifford Gaddy of the Brookings Institution recently explained that one of the reasons sanctions against Russia weren't working was because they were designed to financially target Putin's close associates. "There's an element there of thinking you can hit the guys around Putin as if it's like a real oligarchy," Gaddy said. "These oligarchs, the richest people in the world, their only protection in that society [is Putin] This is like a Mafia operation. He makes sure that the key people around him are vulnerable."
So the rules and penalties for 'insider trading' do not apply to them either ?